The following United States patents disclose boat structures which can be collapsed to provide an alternate boat configuration: U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,837, issued Dec. 16, 1975, U.S. Pat. No. 2,876,728, issued Mar. 10, 1959, U.S. Pat. No. 4,909,169, issued Mar. 20, 1990, U.S. Pat. No. 3,978,536, issued Sep. 7, 1976, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,992,444, issued Jul. 18, 1.961. These patents are believed to be representative of the current stage of the prior art and they fail to provide any teaching of the combination of the structural elements disclosed and claimed herein.
My U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/343,331, filed Jun. 30, 1999, discloses a collapsible boat structure in the form of a pontoon boat which incorporates a plurality of boat deck panels, including first and Second center deck panels which move from a substantially horizontal orientation to a substantially vertical orientation during collapse of the boat. The boat incorporates structure utilized to narrow or widen the boat as desired.